As I sit here gazing out the window Christmas is upon us. I see the snow gently falling, I see lots of snow that continues to accumulate. One often sits here and looks back over the past year and wonders just exactly where that year went and how quickly it has past.

What if anything has changed in Agriculture in the past year? Well, we do know that the mad cow crisis has started to shift somewhat. We do know that the Americans are allowing Canadian beef. We do know that Japan has opened its borders again to Canadian and American beef. We do know that beef farmers are starting to slowly come out of this horrible deep depression that they were in. The Canadian Government, along with Canadian farmers and Agri-Business, are building more packing plants so that we can process our own animals and thereby find world markets for our meat.

We do know that the past year has been fraught with all kinds of problems in the WTO general agreement on trades and tariffs. We know that the WTO talks constantly, consistently and persistently keep our government negotiating away our farmer’s rights in the name of “Free Trade”- Free Trade with more negotiated openings to markets of the world.

We know that there is more pressure on our feather industry, as well as our dairy industry, to give in and get rid of the quota system. We know for a fact that in this Federal election that has been called, that no matter who is running for power in Ottawa they seem to know and understand precious little about the agony that farmers are suffering. We know as each year passes, many of us in the farming scene continue to get older, one month at a time, one day at a time and we know that at some point in time, or we hope that at some point in time, there will be someone with younger blood, newer ideas, and a new vision to take our place. We know that this process will continue on unabated. There are many young people who would dearly love to be farming; yet many of their parents wonder why anyone would ever want to stay or remain on a farm. Despite all of this, this is the time of year when we should all be grateful and thankful for what we have. If we look at all of this objectively, as the saying goes, “it could always be worse”. We seem to have had enough food to eat and no matter how tough we have it, most of the time we seem to have enough money to pay the bills. And so in the long run of things how is a person measured at the end of their life? It is a question that has often made me stop and think.

Seminar

I want to give a special invitation in this newsletter for all of you who plan to attend our 2006 Seminar in Wellesley. We should have a very interesting day with John Smoll talking about Perma Guard-Diatomaceous Earth, David Colling talking about Electrical problems and yours truly talking about various topics pertaining to the Agricultural sector. It is our fervent belief that in order to stay in business we need to understand what is happening around about us. We need to understand what it is that is happening to farmers and the way that they are being manipulated by the multi-national corporations. For this reason we suggest that you book your seating early for our seminar. It will prove to be a very interesting and positive day.

Some news worthy notes for the past three months: In the mad conquest for the unending search for the ultimate production in a Holstein dairy cow, we have now seen some cracks in this staunch armor of the industry. In a recent article in the Hoards Dairyman, a farmer wrote in to talk about his situation and tell the professor who wrote the previous article exactly how bad the modern Holstein dairy cow has become. And I quote “Most modern, commercial dairy men don’t want cows that will be producing in a level that will turn 35-40,000 lb lactations because they know these cows will crash in the environment that they are operating in, only to generate a large amount of labor expense, veterinary expense, and also the heart break of having to put the cow on a truck. We want sturdier, smaller cows that will turn in many profitable lactations and allow us to cut back culling for efficiency and undesirable traits and only culling.” It is interesting to me that in response the professor made the following comment; “Forgive me for lapsing into professor mode for a moment but you would have received a very high grade for preparing such a report in the dairy cattle breeding class on my campus.” He goes on to say, “As an industry we made two mistakes with the Holstein cow; we ignored fertility, and in fact probably selected against fertility in the quest for high production. We turned the young cow with really high records and outstanding type scores into bull mothers whether they bred back or not. We even used ET (embryo transfer) on them to further suppress the natural selection against the sub fertile cow. We did not, and still do not adjust records for days open although we have known for many years that the longer days open in a current lactation increases milk yield in that particular lactation. Our second mistake with Holstein cows was that we did not discriminate against calving difficulty or calf mortality in bull mothers selection. To this day we don’t have genetic evaluations for calf mortality and won’t have them in the near future because the data isn’t recorded.”

So, from the above comments, as we can see we have started down the slippery slope many years ago. The same holds true for many of the people in the poultry industry or for people in the hog industry. We have continued to breed for the mother of all hens, the mother of all sows, and in the end have thrown the baby out with the bath water. This mad dash has taken all of us down a slippery slope.

In the same Hoards Dairyman, in a round table discussion where dairy men shared their best buys, one of the things that they felt was of prime importance in a big dairy in Auburn New York, was the fact that they needed to, without fail, make sure that all these cows in their diary herd are started on a Pre Sync Ova Sync® protocol. Which means hormonally needling these cows to death. “We have all second and greater lactation cows complete the program. First calf heifers are bred off the second time they are needled and show a heat.” There is no regard to what is happening in terms of the genetic capabilities being messed up with these cows. They have no evaluation of what it is that is going to happen in the future.

Furthermore, they have no understanding of what is happening when all these extra hormones wind up in the milk and women and children keep on drinking this so called “milk”. We just don’t seem to get it. As I jokingly say “the lights are on, but nobody seems to be at home”.

Sometimes when I find that farmers have decided that Bio-Ag’s program is too expensive for them and they leave, I’m somewhat saddened. The overall health of your animal is so important to us. I refer again to Hoards Dairyman magazine, where we are seeing the importance of feeding Omega 3 fatty acids i.e. Flax Meal. There are reported conception rate increases, higher milk component levels and it’s interesting that the flax seed oil has a 24% protein component. And they say here that “research done in Canada and at the University of Florida showed that first service consumption rates were substantially improved by maintaining a healthy uterine environment with subliminal Omega 3. But a research has found that herds feeding flax seed had higher component levels.” This supports our philosophy to use Flax Meal and although it is more expensive, it has so much health and nutritional value. Unfortunately, farmers sometimes don’t see this as we do . However, we know that in the long run the things that Bio-Ag does for the dairy cow of the modern farmer is to keep that cow in good reproductive form, producing milk and continuing to stay in the herd for 5,6,7 lactations; we know 60-70% first service concentration is possible. We know that we can do the same for the sow operator; we know we can do the same for the poultry operator as well. One of our latest studies has been a broiler farmer who put Bio-Lac through the water. The last two batches of birds, back to back, have been the best birds they have produced in ten years time. Does that mean that the feed company will endorse our product? Heaven forbid, this might even cost them something in terms of less feed sales, but in the end it might do them some justice if they were even humble enough to admit it.

However, life goes on, and to each and every one of you in the coming year 2006, I wish all of you the very best. Thanks to you our loyal customers, thanks to you our staff and our sales people for doing such a wonderful job in 2005. All the best!

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Staff Profile

Thevika Sebastian PhD was born in Sri Lanka. She went to Eastern University Sri Lanka to obtain her BSc in Agriculture. In recognition of her outstanding achievements she was appointed as a Lecturer in the department of Animal Science. She held this position for about 10 years. In 1990 Thevika was awarded the British Commonwealth Scholarship to continue her postgraduate studies at the University of London England. In her PhD studies she was looking into “the effects of different sources of protein and their protein fraction on milk production and milk components in Holstein dairy cattle”. After finishing her studies, she went back to Sri Lanka and worked as a professor in the department of Animal Science.

Thevika was then appointed as head of the department of Animal Science until she left the country because of the civil war. Thevika was responsible for the operation of the university farm and in conducting training programs for farmers on topics such as how to efficiently use the locally available feed ingredients with dairy cattle.

Murray’s philosophy towards natural feeds and animal health attracted Thevika to join Bio-Ag in 2002. Thevika is working as our Nutritionist, upgrading formulas and balancing rations for dairy, poultry and swine. She always welcomes the farmer’s call.

Thevika and her family live in New Hamburg.